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Do We Need Government Intervention?
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- Posted by Michael Einhorn posted at 2004-08-03 14:52
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Indecent Proposals
- Posted by Rags Gupta, Live365 posted at 2004-08-17 01:12
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Compulsory Licensing: Bad Moon Rising
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- Posted by Michael Einhorn posted at 2004-09-11 11:50
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No More CRAP, er CARP
President Bush signed the Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act into law today. This abolishes the CARP ...
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- Posted by Rags Gupta, Live365 posted at 2004-12-02 23:53
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MGM - Grokster: The Calm Before the Storm
The SCOTUS decision for MGM-Grokster will soon be handed out. The conventional wisdom holds that the sacred cow of a precedent that the landmark 1984 Betamax decision became for the tech industry may not remain in its existing form. This because the SCOTUS smells a rat in Grokster and any precedent that allow the Groksters of the world to facilitate massive copyright infringement, which they do. They may punt it back to the 9th Circuit. Not many believe that they'll leave Betamax untouched.
I won't be so foolish as to predict an outcome. The one prediction I will make is that this will eventually end up in Congress' court. If the tech industry feels a chilling effect from any new precedent, you can be sure they'll be having their lobbyists push for Congress to shore things up for them. Vice-versa for the copyright industry should they be the clearcut loser.
Alas, I won't be able to fan whatever flames come out of the decision. I'll be out of the country on vacation for a few weeks starting Monday, and this will be my last column until late July.
- Posted by Rags Gupta posted at 2005-06-22 20:46
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The PERFORM Act
Earlier this week, details emerged of the PERFORM Act backed by Senators Feinstein, Frist and Graham that attempts to ensure platform equality for the distribution of music by ensuring royalty rate parity and content protection. The Senate Judiciary Committee had a number of people testify on the matter including Edgar Bronfman, Anita Baker, Gary Parsons (Chairman of XM) and Mark Lam, the CEO of Live365.
I haven't followed this matter very closely but I think attempts to level the playing field for various radio platforms is a good thing. I've not been against the idea of paying a fair royalty rate to artists (both songwriters and performers), but rather paying vastly different rates for the use of the same music as is currently the case with terrestrial radio broadcasters not paying anything to sound recording owners, satellite radio companies paying mid to high single digital percentage of revenue, and internet radio companies paying up to 33% of revenue, and yet internet radio companies have to heed the song complement restrictions of the DMCA unlike others. It seems that the PERFORM Act would not bring terrestrial broadcast into parity, although at least bringing the digital radio services into parity would be a great start.
The Act would also mandate content protections for digital radio companies. This could result in webcasters needing to stream in a protected in a DRM'd format. I haven't read the actual Act so can't comment too broadly on this except to say that Congress should be very careful in legislating content protection and of unintended consequences.
There's a good overview on the bill from Sen. Feinstein's office.
[Note: The views above reflect my personal views and not that of any company or association that I may nor or have been affiliated with]
- Posted by Rags Gupta posted at 2006-04-30 16:56
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The Net Neutrality Debate
So the real question in the Network Neutrality debate, then, is if Internet Service Providers—the folks at the “core” who build and own the physical internet pipes—can monetize or otherwise “groom” their bandwidth. While it is unlikely that ISPs would ever attempt to charge all web-based content providers (they likely will maintain “best efforts” transmission for all), they might investigate entering into select partnerships in order to offer their subscribers certain higher quality, faster “edge-based” applications and content services. There are other issues to consider, as well—network innovation and platform diversity.
Some neutrality proponents imply that innovation should take place only at the internet’s “edge.” ISPs, on the other hand, take the view that innovation should also happen at the network’s “core” physical pipes. Allowing innovation at the core, ISPs argue, will pave the way for better edge services, because the core and edge exist together in a symbiotic relationship.
Neutrality advocates also assert that the current cable and DSL duopoly cannot be trusted to maintain open internet access. ISPs, however, believe that if network operators are allowed to reap the benefits of core/edge innovation through the provision of, for example, enhanced bandwidth to selected edge partners, then other entrants will be encouraged to build out new broadband pipes, resulting in “platform diversity” and more consumer choice.
In Congress, there have been a number of recent developments on this issue. For instance:
The Senate Commerce Committee voted on Wednesday to send the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act to the full Senate without the kind of sweeping network neutrality language lobbied for by “edge” service providers like Microsoft and Google. The neutrality issue proved divisive within the Committee, where a cadre of predominantly Democratic senators moved to amend the act to include principals enumerated in previous legislation. Though ultimately not included in the committee’s version of the CCBDA, those principals would have effectively rendered Internet Service Providers blind with respect to “the source, destination or ownership” of data packets, because ISPs would have been required to maintain a dumb pipe “in the carriage and treatment of Internet traffic.”
Instead, it appears that network neutrality proponents might have to content themselves with the compromise language of the Internet Consumer Bill of Rights, enshrined within Title IX of the CCBDA. The Bill of Rights would allow ISPs to maintain unfettered access to all lawful content, while also giving customers the option to subscribe to select applications and content services that are enhanced through higher transmission speeds.
While some may view Wednesday’s committee vote as a victory for Internet Service Providers, the network neutrality issue is not yet resolved. The Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act must still face a vote before the entire Senate, where some senators have vowed to attempt to hold up the legislation until strong neutrality provisions are included in its language.
- Posted by Joseph Clark, Analyst posted at 2006-06-29 05:59
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The Internet Radio Equality Act
That's the name of a bill that was introduced earlier today by Rep. Inslee (D-WA) and 8 other co-sponsors. Its purpose is to put internet radio on the same footing as satellite radio, which I've been a big proponent of. That means the same standard when it comes to royalty rate setting and a royalty rate of $0.33 per hour or 7.5% of revenues, which is what satellite radio pays. On a side note, terrestrial radio should also be on the same playing field. If this bill were to become law, it would be a huge reprieve for webcasters and, I'm sure, lead to more investment in the medium.
I've said that it would take an act of Congress to stop webcasters from going under, which is what happened last time around with the Small Webcaster Settlement Act. The Internet Radio Equality Act represents the best shot for webcasters to finally be on equal footing. I think terrestrial radio should also have to pay royalties. I haven't talked to any of my former colleagues in the industry about which way the political winds are blowing on this and whether there will be enough momentum to get this passed. Last time around, the music industry lobbied the congressmen sympathetic to them to modify or threaten to hold up the proposed legislation unless they got some provisions that they wanted. I expect the same thing to happen here so I doubt the Bill will pass with all of the provisions intact as-is, if it passes.
To that end, the Webcasters are organizing a Day of Silence on May 8th as a way of attracting attention to their cause, which is what we did 5 years ago to attract attention to the cause (I'm proud that I played a small role in conceiving of the idea and getting Kurt Hanson and other Webcasters behind it). They're also organizing a Hill Walk to rally support for the bill. If you'd like to voice support for Webcasters, do so by calling your Congressman and asking them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act.
[Cross-posted from ragsgupta.com]
- Posted by rgupta posted at 2007-04-27 05:25
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